Joy as a Practice — Small Creative Rituals

"We do not laugh because we are happy — we are happy because we laugh."

William James 

Here we are — our final newsletter in the May Creativity and Joyful Living series.

I did not expect to experience all that I did this month, including loss. It wasn't on the cards for me — but then, that is the way life goes.

I found out about my mother's terminal cancer at 3am on the morning of my birthday. My partner and I decided to go ahead and celebrate anyway — to still invite joy in, in the midst of my grief. My Facebook post that day didn't mention my mother. But I did share something I have been learning since the death of my brother: that I can hold two opposing emotions side by side without one cancelling the other out.

That is how this month has felt.

Celebrating my birthday. Quiet wins in other corners of my life. Getting the news that we had to move from our apartment — and finding a much better one in less than a week. Losing my mother. Being reunited with long-lost friendships I thought were gone for good.

All of it. At the same time. This is life lived to its fullest.

And so this month, we kept exploring creativity and joy amongst life's twists and turns — because that is exactly where they are needed most.

What I'm noticing

The women I know who genuinely glow in their 50s, 60s and 70s — and I am lucky to know many of you — almost all have one thing in common.

It isn't money. It isn't perfect health. It isn't a tidy life without losses. (None of us has that one.)

What they have is rituals. Small, almost unnoticeable rituals that they return to, like a thread they keep weaving back into the fabric of their day. The cup of tea in the same chair every morning. The five minutes in the garden before the rest of the world wakes up. The walk after dinner. The Friday flowers. The Sunday phone call to a sister.

These are not big creative gestures. They are tiny anchors. And they are how joy gets practised — not waited for.

The thing no one talks about

Joy as we age is not something that lands on us by accident. It has grown. Often, it is grown right alongside the heavier things — the diagnoses, the empty rooms, the moves we did not plan, the losses we did not see coming.

This is what I have been learning, over and over again, this month.

I think many women our age are quietly waiting for life to "settle down" before they let themselves feel joy again. And the truth, said gently, is that life does not settle down. It just keeps moving. Grief and gladness will keep arriving in the same week — sometimes in the same hour — and we are allowed to hold them both.

That is the soft revolution of this stage of life: choosing joy anyway. Lighting the candle anyway. Wearing that fabulous outfit, anyway. Putting the music on anyway. Showing up to your one small ritual anyway.

Not because everything is fine. Because you are choosing to be alive while you are alive.

A reflection to carry with you

This week, I invite you to choose one tiny ritual. Just one. Something that takes less than five minutes. Something that brings you back to yourself.

Maybe it is lighting a candle while you make your morning coffee. Maybe it is stepping outside barefoot for one breath of fresh air. Maybe it is writing one sentence in a notebook before bed. Maybe it is playing one song — that song — while you wash the dishes. Maybe it's saying an extra minute in Sivansana.

Do it every day for a week. Do not skip it because you are tired, sad, or busy. Especially then.

Notice what happens. Notice how a tiny, repeated act of joy slowly rearranges the inside of a day.

Coming up in June — Financial Confidence as We Age

Next month, we are turning our attention to something many of us were never properly taught: money.

Not in a stressful way. In a soft, honest, sisterhood way. Together, we'll look at the stories we inherited about money, where we actually stand today, how to plan for the women we are becoming, and what real wealth looks like in this chapter of life.

I am so looking forward to walking through it with you.

One last note on May

Thank you — truly — for showing up to our Creativity and Joyful Living series this month. For the sketches in kitchens nobody else will see. For the twenty-minute practices. For dancing badly in your living rooms. For trusting that a small creative act, done in midlife, is never small at all.

You have inspired me more than you know.

With love and sisterhood,

Big Hugs, Faith & The Silver Sirens Team